The Catalog of Good Deeds: Modern Day Miracles

Showing posts with label Modern Day Miracles. Show all posts

Vladimir S.

“Now see, young man, that you don’t let me down.”

In August of 2007, my wife and I took a tour of the Golden Ring.1 We travelled to the museums, monasteries, and churches. Not as pilgrims, but just to raise our cultural level. We always regarded the Church with respect, considered ourselves Orthodox, but we had no more than a vague understanding of Christianity, taken mainly from western films.

At forty years of age I thought that Christians believed in a Single God—Jesus Christ. I was even slightly preoccupied with the question: Where did God the Father go after the resurrection of the Son? I heard something about the Trinity, which was mixed up in my head with Andrei Rublev, the angels, and Abraham. I had also heard of the Holy Spirit but it just didn’t fit into my concept of Christianity, although I read the Gospels— three from start to finish and half of John. The last one seemed awfully complicated, and I didn’t have the werewithall.

Well, of course I knew how to behave in church, just like any Orthodox person. I walked in, crossed myself, and bought some candles—one for the dead, another for the Mother of God, a third for God, and a fourth for the saint. You light a candle, place it in the candle stand, cross yourself, ask the Mother of God for family happiness, God for defense against your enemies, the Crucifix for help for your relatives in the other world, and the saint—something for yourself.

My life at the time was more or less successful. A loving wife, children, a good job, material prosperity, vacations on sunny beaches and in beautiful cities. Everything was fine. My wife unexpectedly got the inclination to skip the Canaries and ride along the Golden Ring instead. We had never been there; let’s go and partake of our own culture. Off we went.

Well, among the other places of interest we were taken to the Monastery of the Resurrection in the town of Uglich. They lead us off the bus, told us about when it was founded, when it was closed, and when it was restored, and then took us to the monastery church. It was a plain building, with whitewashed walls. It looked more like a peasant hut than an Orthodox church.

I looked, and on the wall hung two large icons—one of St. Seraphim of Sarov, and one of some other elderly man. Although I knew nothing about the Holy Trinity I knew and respected St. Seraphim. I looked at the saints and suddenly and unexpectedly felt I could trust them. I wanted to go up and ask a secret wish. An inexplicable conviction arose that if you ask they will give it to you.

Because my life was more or less successful I had allowed myself to grow a respectable beer belly, a double chin, and fat cheeks. I drank a lot of expensive alcohol, chased by an abundance of caloric appetizers—mostly meat. This caused me problems with physical exercise. I dreamt of going to the gym and dropping extra weight but my corpulent body resisted and held me back.

So now I looked at St. Seraphim and the second elder and asked them, “Help me to start going to the gym; I want to get in shape and be strong, I don’t want this oncoming flabbiness. Give me a push, give me the opportunity to make the first step, and I won’t let you down.”

I don’t know how to explain this, but they looked at me sternly and I heard the answer: “Look, young man, you promised not to let me down.”

Young man? At age forty? Why “young man”? “Of course I promise,” I said. “You just give me a push, help me out.”

I left the church fully expecting a wave of unprecedented physical energy, but nothing happened. I did not become stronger or more energetic the next day either, nor the next week, nor the next…

A month later I quit drinking. I woke up one morning after the usual drinking bout and understood that I will not drink anymore. That’s enough. I’d drunk my fill. Of course I was sure that this caprice would pass by evening. It wasn’t the first morning I had resolved to stop drinking, and by that time I had a lot of experience. But it didn’t pass. Two days later, lost in my guesses as to what had happened to me, I suddenly remembered Father Seraphim’s stern look and his demand that I not let him down.

Now I haven’t drunk for six years, I go to the gym and the pool, have a better physique and have shed a number of ailments. I am not drawn to alcohol in the least, and this is without any effort on my part. It’s an ordinary Miracle.

But most importantly, my wife and I now believe in the Trinity One in Essence and Undivided; we know what repentance is, we receive Holy Communion, and after three decades of living together we have been married sacramentally in the church.

Thanks to the prayers of St. Seraphim I now know that my life was not successful at all, but to the contrary I had spent the greater part of it drinking and eating, but I am not offended at the saint for letting me know this.

I thank you Father Seraphim, for your prayers for this forty-year-old teenager, which saved his life!

Nikita Ovchinikov

I feel warm! Warm!

In the summer of 2013 my mother’s friend came to visit us. For about two months she was unable to cure a bad cough. Her “hack-hack” carried throughout the apartment. It is worth noting that this lady was a Tatar Muslim. During our conversation, between her coughing bouts, she took an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov and pressed it to her chest. “Help me, please!” she said beforehand.

“I feel warm! Warm!” she said, now afterward. Her surprise knew no bounds—the warmth was so strong that the icon left a red mark on her chest. That is how Father Seraphim helped a person in need, and also strengthened our faith. Wondrous is God in His saints!

Boris Savinov

Despair overwhelmed my soul

The holy wonderworker and God-pleaser: great are his miracles! I always ask him to strengthen my faith. I always ask him to confirm me in the faith and understanding of God’s will. I did time in a penitentiary in Nizhny Novgorod province, and at times despair overwhelmed my soul.

Once it became very hard; I was in the hospital and the brothers of a local church brought me oil blessed on the saint’s relics. I made the sign of the cross with it on my forehead and prayed. The saint’s example of praying on the rock2 always gave me strength. I recovered, was released before the end of my term, and haven’t backslidden for five years now. I live and labor, and glory be to God, although things are not problem-free it is not that outer darkness that I had before. Glory be to God. Rejoice, holy God-pleaser Seraphim!!!

Vladimir

My wife and I were unable to have children for a long time

For me, St. Seraphim of Sarov is one of the greatest saints! I feel his wonderworking help every time I turn to him with prayer. My wife and I were unable to have children for a long time. Our relationship was not working out.

In 2012 we took my mother-in-law to Diveyevo, and she is not a religious woman. Well, we went to all the holy places. We immersed ourselves in all the holy springs and venerated St. Seraphim’s relics. And a miracle occurred. No more than a month went by before my wife got pregnant. Now our daughter Nastenka was born—a strong, healthy child.

I continue to go to Diveyevo alone, with pilgrimage groups by bus, because my wife is breastfeeding. But when Nastenka gets bigger the whole family will definitely continue to visit Diveyevo. That is our St. Seraphim of Sarov—a great wonderworker! May the Lord help us all!

Source: http://pravoslavie.ru/76529.html

Everything came together in Alla Mescherova’s life seemingly as it should: auditing classes in the Repin Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, then learning iconography in the “School of Ecclesiastical Arts” in Tver—if it hadn’t been for one thing: Alfia (as her parents named her) grew up in a Muslim family, who held the traditions of their ancestors sacred. Nevertheless, her soul found its home in Orthodox Christianity.

—Few Muslims, especially Muslim women, resolve to change their religion against their family’s wishes. What happened to turn the wheel of your family history around so sharply?

—I was born to a Muslim family. Both of my grandmothers were believers and prayed the namaz. My father’s mother was particularly pious—she prayed several times a day according to the Muslim custom, and she taught me the Muslim prayers. Unfortunately the prayers did not touch me because I was repeating them in Arabic, which I did not understand. Grandmother did not know the translation. As I can remember I searched for a conscious faith, and that is why a trusting relationship with God never came together then.

Alla Mescherova

—When did it begin to come together?

—After completing school I continued with determination to search for the meaning of life, beginning with the entire Koran. But I did not find the answers to my questions in that wise book and so began reading various philosophers: Marxists, idealists, and then Soloviev, Berdyaev, and Rozanov. The last of these nudged me toward Christ. But my path to Him would be very thorny: At the end of the 1980s, against the background of a general interest in all things paranormal, certain “abilities” opened up in me and for several years I was stuck in the mire of esotericism, then acquiring a mass of various phobias. In my head then was, in the words of Fr. Andrei Kuryaev, the Russian intelligentsia’s favorite dish—a casserole of Buddhism, esotericism, and theosophy. It was all flavored with an Islamic sauce and peppered with a vague idea of Christianity. It was then that I began to read the Gospels, and I put them under my pillow at night, because only then could I sleep peacefully; without them I was wracked with nightmares. In 1987 my grandmother became sick with cancer and by autumn she was bedridden, worrying above all about how she would most likely die in winter and they would bury her in the cold ground. Then I had a purely coincidental conversation with my teacher while I was sketching on the banks of the Smolenka River, and told him how my grandmother has been near death for over two weeks, and the doctors said she would not live. He offered to take me to Blessed Xenia [of Petersburg], whose chapel was not far away in the Smolensk cemetery, because Xenia helps everyone. When we arrived he showed me where to buy a candle and where to place it. This was at about four o’clock. I prayed from the heart, asking Xenia to help my grandmother and ease her suffering. For some strange reason I had so much trust in an Orthodox saint whom I did not even know that when I came home that evening I wasn’t even surprised to see my grandmother walking around the apartment, and that she had begun to feel better at precisely four o’clock.

—After this you came to Orthodoxy without any doubts?

Icon of the Descent into hades

—It wasn’t all so simple. By that time I had read the Gospels and went to church regularly, but I did not have the resolve to be baptized. After all, it is a serious step to change your faith. I understood that this would be a blow to my parents, and I feared for their health. I only asked the Lord to give me a clear and comprehensible sign so that I could understand whether it was His will that I be baptized. And one day I came to church on the Smolenka. There were two hours yet before the beginning of services, not many people present, and I stood in the side church of St. Xenia of Petersburg, leaning on the column. Suddenly the space around me changed—everything disappeared. There was no floor, no ceiling, and nothing at all; however it was not emptiness but a thick dark blueness, almost blackness. It was the black that you see in the mandorla on the Novgorod icon, “Descent into hades.” For a long time I could not understand why the space was dark and only a few years later I read in the writings of Dionysios the Aeropagite that people see Divine uncreated light as darkness. Well, it was insanely beautiful, absolutely incomprehensible, and my feelings were like what a child must feel at his mother’s bosom—protection and love. Then out of the haze enshrouding the entire area a hand stretched toward me holding a cross on a chain. I reached out with the palm of my hand, and when they placed that cross in it, I immediately returned to reality. The next day I went to be baptized without any doubts.

The Holy Trinity. Icon by A. Meschereva

—Did iconography come as one of the facets of your profession?

—This was God’s will, and it has its prehistory. In about 1994 a global crisis happened in my life: first of all a creative one—I couldn’t paint pictures; second, the object of my love left me, slamming the door loudly; third, I nearly stopped breathing from asthma. But mainly I understood that this whole bouquet of misfortunes was the result of my former, stormy life. But the Lord never abandons us. Seeing that I could not get through this without God’s church, on February 6, the feast day of Blessed Xenia, I literally crawled to her chapel, stood through the services with great difficulty, and afterwards felt significantly better. When finally I stopped feeling like a half-dead invalid, and began to breathe more or less normally, the question came: How should I live from now on? Should I change my profession at age twenty-nine? But painting was not just a profession for me—for eleven years I had worked like one obsessed sixteen hours a day in order to become a painter. If I were to change professions it would mean that all my labors and sacrifices were in vain and my whole life up to that point was meaningless. Once I had heard about Diveyevo and St. Seraphim of Sarov, and I decided to go to him for the answer to my inner question, although I didn’t have any idea what a monastery was, or a pilgrimage. I went with a friend. We arrived at Nizhny Novgorod without complications but then… Instead of a pleasant three-hour ride in a comfortable bus we stood thirteen hours in a gigantic traffic jam due to a fierce snowstorm. No sooner had this torture on the road ceased than torture from snowdrifts began: For the first (and I hope, last) time in my life I tumbled into snow up to my neck.

I remember the first few days in the monastery like a nightmare. It was very hard. But it was there that I was born again. The woman we stayed with and with whom we formed a friendship within the two weeks we were in Diveyevo asked me one day: “Well, you are an artist. Perhaps you could paint me Blessed Xenia? This request turned out to be absolutely providential. Fr. Vladimir Shishkin came to me personally in the church when he saw my confusion. I explained my situation and he said that he did not bless me to paint an icon “just like that,” that this is something that must be studied, and therefore he blessed me to go to the iconographic work group of Andrei Zaprudny in Tver. He said it and then ran off on his business. I asked him as he ran away, “Batiushka, what about my parents?! After all, they are Muslims, they won’t understand, and won’t let me go to a strange city…” He just waved his hand as he walked and said, “The Lord will take care of it.” Fr. Vladimir turned out to be right: The Lord took care of it so that my parents calmly accepted the news that I was going to study in Tver. True, I didn’t tell them exactly that this was a school of ecclesiastical arts. Having stepped upon the path of Orthodoxy and a new profession, I always felt God’s help and Providence for me.

The Protection of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. Icon by A. Meschereva

—Did you ever think of yourself as an iconographer before this? As an artist you probably always admired the works of Theophan the Greek, or Andrei Rublev?

—Before I was even baptized, in probably 1991, I was at an exhibition from the Russian Museum: Kandinsky, Malevich, Goncharev, Chagall, Philonov… But these painting were not what amazed me—although at the time I also loved all of that—but rather the Russian icons from the collection of Nikodim Kondakov, a famous art historian. This was a feast, an untold feeling of paradise and wonder, and I walked around for a long time as if dumbstruck. I returned to this exhibition ten times just for these icons, because Chagall, as it turns out, is not interesting even the third or fourth time around. I was astounded by the mastery with which these icons were painted. I saw paradise on them. And this was a discovery for me, because during Soviet times it was customary to look at Russian icons condescendingly. Now Italian Renaissance, that’s something, but an icon—of course it’s nice, but… This admiration of icons lived in me all the years following and became something like a key that would one day open the door into the world of Orthodoxy. This is what probably determined my present festive style.

—When you started painting saints did temptations arise, or did it all go smoothly and blessedly?

—The first icon I painted was the “Flogging of St. George.” The work group was then painting two iconostases for a Belorussian church, and one altar was dedicated to St. George. Then I painted the Trinity for the iconostasis in Diveyevo. In general there were mostly temptations connected with icon painting. I don’t recall any miracles, but temptations—over the top. Especially when you paint an image to go behind the holy table, a cross, or an iconostasis. I painted my first icon for the altar in the early 2000s for the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Sertolov, Vsevolozhskovo region of Leningrad province. I had just barely started my work when I managed to crack my rib. I didn’t think to take painkillers, and the doctors didn’t mention it. The icon board was huge and heavy, and I had to lift it, turn it, take it from the easel, carry it to the table, and then return it again to the easel. Batiushka wanted this icon painted as soon as possible and didn’t consider that I needed sick leave at least for a time after the fracture. Due to constant physical pain I was constantly in a deadened state, and maybe that is why the icon turned out good and prayerful. Everyone said that. The first two icons for my first iconostasis were very hard to do—something was always happening, and then it got a little easier, although it never went smoothly. One of these icons later streamed myrrh. An icon depicts the higher world. We sometimes forget that Christ’s love is behind this phrase. We depict a world of complete, harmonious Love, which cannot be sad, sorrowful, or gloomy—all of that is human. Orthodoxy is the joy of communion with God. That is why we glorify God, for He brought us the good tidings of Love. This is reflected in icons.

Source: http://orthochristian.com/77156.html

On June 11 the Church celebrates the uncovering of the relics of a great saint and miracle-worker of our times, Holy Hierarch Luke (Voino-Yasnestsky), Archbishop of Simferopol and the Crimea. On St. Luke’s commemoration day, the readers of the Russian site Pravoslavie.ru shared their experiences of his miraculous help. We have translated a few of them for our English language readers.

“She felt as though someone was giving her an operation”

(By Olga Valerievna)

Dear editors, great thanks and a deep bow to you, that amidst the bottomless internet space you appear as an island of salvation and Orthodox faith. We greatly revere St. Luke and would like to share our story.

Our aunt from Georgia suffered all her life—and she is already 55 years old—from terrible attacks of migraine. Everyday she would take a handful of pills just ease the unbearable pain a least a little.

We told her about St. Luke and showed her the film, “Saints of the 20th Century.” She wept and kissed the icon of the saint and asked him for help. She prayed to him many nights, and read his sermons and spiritual instructions. And in around a month a friend of ours from Simferopol brought some oil and a little icon from the relics of St. Luke. Our aunt anointed the painful area with this oil and prayed every day, touching her head to the icon.

One day, when she woke up in the morning, with great trembling and unwavering faith in St. Luke’s help, she told us the following. Just as she had done several day earlier, she prayed in the evening before going to bed, anointed the painful spot with the oil, touched the icon to it, lay down to sleep, and…

After that, she said, she felt as if someone was giving her an operation on her head: They rubbed something on, opened it up, and as if pulled something out. At first it was very painful, but to the measure of its release the painful spot began to go away “from something”. Then that spot burned for a long time like fire, and by morning the pain was completely gone.

Now almost a half a year has passed and, glory be to God, she no longer takes any pills and has forgotten what it’s like to have a migraine.

We have a little boy who we named Luke—our fourth child. During pregnancy and birth I prayed to St. Luke for help and a successful birth, and this help came. We thank thee, holy father Luke, and we honor thy holy memory, for thou dost pray for us to Christ our God!

“As a doctor, I understand that this is almost impossible”

(By Ekaterina Filatova)

I would like to tell you about St. Luke’s help to my son. Little Vanyusha had a hernia, and I remembered that there was a vial with oil from St. Luke in our house. I prayed to the holy surgeon, and anointed the hernia with oil.

On the next day I discovered that it had disappeared! As a doctor I understand that this is almost impossible. But as a believing Christian I know that what is impossible to man is possible to God. Glory to God for all things!

“The operation was cancelled, and the tumor was pronounced benignant”

(By Elena Kapulin)

Three years ago I was given a diagnosis of: “hygroma of the Achilles tendon.” My right leg was already ailing without that—cerebral palsy. They scheduled an operation, told me to have a tomogram, and then onto the operating table. I was very scared (this had been the third tumor diagnosis in my life).

Every time I came to church I venerated the icon of St. Luke with the particle of his relics. A week passed, I received Communion and went to have the tomography. And the doctor announced, very amazed, “As you like, but you don’t have a hygroma. This is a fibroma! (a fibroma is a post-operative change in tissue). I said, “Of course I had an operation on the Achilles tendon, but that was 25 years ago! But the doctor insisted: “I do not see a hygroma on the tomogram! This is a fibroma!

Well, the operation was cancelled and he tumor was called benignant. I thank God and St. Luke!

“I said that I would take car of it!”

(By Natalia Popova)

My godson was born sickly, and this was a great blow to his whole family. The boy required many operations, and most of them were performed when he was not yet a year and a half. Of course, we sought help from the Lord, the Mother of God, and the holy God-pleasers.

I had heard about St. Luke of the Crimea but somehow I, a sinner, was not accustomed to turning to him for help. And suddenly I began to understand that in the churches I was more and more often running into icons of St. Luke, and felt his gaze on me, which asked, “Why don’t you ask me?”

There was such alarm and fear, but I had an infinite surety that everything would be all right with the child. After watching a documentary on St. Luke, perhaps my calls for help became especially fervent. He himself came to me in a dream and said that he would help our boy. I hoped that this was a good dream.

The first three operations on the intestines went very well, and the hindrances that came up simply disappeared suddenly. But there was still to be an operation on the head, and when some doubts arose regarding the choice of clinic (the doctors did not promise a very successful result), I as if heard a St. Luke’s words: “I said that I would take care of it!”

The alarm passed, and Glory to God and the Mother of God, glory to St. Luke of the Crimea and all the holy God-pleasers, the operation was very successful! My godson recovered rapidly. There are more operations ahead, but I know that all will be well with him! I have prayed to St. Luke of the Crimea for help ever since!

“He makes the doctors understand how best to do operations”

(By Svetlana Sadchikova)

Thanks, a thousand times! We always pray to St. Luke for our close ones—and he always miraculously helps. He makes the doctors understand how best to do operations. Enormous thanks to him!!!

Source: http://orthochristian.com/77994.html

I heard this story from Hieromonk Theophylact, a monk of the Pskov Caves Monastery, during the latter half of the 1980s. He was told it by a military man—a first-rank captain and man of faith. How did he come to the faith?

In his youth he commanded a torpedo boat on the Pacific Ocean. One day the boat went out on its watch into the sea. The weather forecasts were good, and nothing indicated any trouble. Just the same, on the horizon there appeared at first a large dark cloud, which started growing rapidly. A sharp wind blew, which grew into a strong squall. A storm began. Huge waves started beating against the small ship.

The ship was tossed from side to side. Water flowed into the machinery area. The ship was on the verge of stopping, and that would fatal for all.

The captain was no coward, but nevertheless the fear of death reached his heart—after all, he was not alone; he answered for the entire company. What should he do? Then suddenly he remembered his mother’s words of long ago: “Pray to God. He saves people everywhere.” And the words of his grandfather, an old sea dog: “Whoever has not been to sea has never prayed to God.” The captain had not gone to church since childhood—first there was the young pioneers, the komsomol, and then his service. He did not know how to pray. But inside, in his soul he was shouting, “Lord, save me! Lord have mercy!”

Suddenly, a miracle happened. He saw an old man walking right on the waves, wearing the garments of a priest. The captain even had time to look at his face—regular features, a small beard, and a clear gaze. The old man blessed the ship with both hands and immediately the wind died down. The sea went flat. The storm was over. The Captain caught his breath.

Returning, he promised to himself to go without delay to a church and place a candle as a sign of thanks for his deliverance and the salvation of the crew. But in the Far East during the years of persecution, nearly all the churches had been destroyed.

Nevertheless, an opportunity soon presented itself. He was sent on an assignment to Leningrad. While travelling along the Ring Road, the captain noticed a beautiful five-domed cathedral. He left the tram and walked over to it. It was the St. Nicholas Cathedral, of naval glory. But the captain did not know about this. He went into the half-dark lower church, bought a candle for two rubles and fifty kopecks and looked around for a candle stand to place it on. He noticed an icon with the image of a pious elder in the garb of a bishop and decided, “I’ll place a candle before this grandpa.” The captain walked closer, looked at the icon, and froze. The facial features corresponded exactly to those of the amazing elder who had stopped the storm on the Pacific Ocean! “Whose image is that?” the captain asked a church-worker in a dark apron. “What do you mean, whose? It’s the holy hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas, defender of those who sail the sea,” she replied.

This incident was written down in slightly different word by Fr. Theophylact in his collection, This Happened in Our Time. Twenty-seven years have passed since I read it. Much has been erased from my memory, but the main thing remained: the image of St. Nicholas, the merciful, miraculous deliverer of those who are perishing.

By Fr. Vladimir Vasilik

Source: http://orthochristian.com/70898.html

His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry speaks on the most important miracle in every man’s life, and the speedy aid and miracles of St. Nicholas by prayers to him.

—Your Beatitude, the Church celebrates the holy hierarch Nicholas of Myra on December 19 and May 22. Tell us please about St. Nicholas’ main miracles in his lifetime, and about his wondrous deeds.

—St. Nicholas was a naturally very active person. He tried to harmonize all his deeds with the Divine will; his life was guided by the sacred laws and rules of the Holy Gospel. Being a bishop in the city of Myra in Lycia, he greatly helped the poor and defended the downtrodden. St. Nicholas used his great authority and respect among the secular rulers, and if someone was unjustly condemned, they would turn to the saint, and he would come with a petition for the condemned. But the saint not only gave alms to the poor, helped orphans, and defended those who were unjustly condemned to death—for this is not enough for man’s salvation. It is also necessary to preserve the purity of the holy faith. That is precisely why St. Nicholas was so zealous at the First Ecumenical Council, when the question of the relationship between the Savior and God the Father was raised. The problem consisted of one letter: “Homoousios” is a Greek word meaning “of one essence,” and “homoiousios” means “of similar essence”—that is, it was about the definition of the essence of Christ in relation to God, with Whom Christ is of one essence. St. Nicholas defended “homoousios” and struck Arius on the face for his blasphemy, and the Lord did not condemn him for it, although the bishops decided to deprive the saint of his episcopal rank. The worthy men had a vision: The Lord gave the saint the Gospel, and the Mother of God placed an omophorion on him. The holy fathers understood that God had forgiven the saint his sin, because he had done it not out of personal predilection, but because he was zealous for the purity of the holy faith.

Metropolitan Onuphry

—And what is known about the modern miracles and help from St. Nicholas in our day?

—When I was in the city of Myra (within the territory of modern Turkey), our guide, a Turk, told us an amazing story about the intercession of St. Nicholas. Once she had to work with a group that had a little three or four-year-old boy. For some reason, he got cranky and began to cry. His crying grew worse and worse, and finally the child threw such a tantrum, that, as our guide said, he was crying both “on the inhale and on the exhale.” Everyone was afraid, not knowing what to do, but the child turned blue, dead in the eyes. Then Suma (our guide) turned to St. Nicholas: “Nicholas, we’re coming to see you, but this child’s not allowing us to; we should return, because he could die from such strong, constant crying. If you want us to come to you, make this child stop.” As soon as she prayed, the child stopped. The group arrived to St. Nicholas, and the child didn’t even make a peep. Suma told us of many other instances (she was Muslim, by the way) where St. Nicholas worked miracles by her prayers, and those of other Turks, who turned to him for help.

—Why is St. Nicholas’ help considered the quickest?

—If a man does not have the true faith, he cannot find the correct place in relation to the Creator to restore within Himself the image of God and to enter the Heavenly Kingdom, because there is no path there for the impure.

St. Nicholas helps those who believe, to affirm their faith, and those who do not yet know God, to kindle in them the flame of faith, but certainly not to approve of their lives and deeds. As the Lord makes the sun to shine upon all, whether good or evil, and the rain to fall upon all, and calls everyone to salvation and knowledge of the truth, so St. Nicholas does good deeds for those who do not know the true God in the hope that they will understand and turn to the Creator.

—What is the most important miracle in any man’s life?

—The most important miracle in our lives is to meet God, and for this, every man must see his negative sides within himself. We should condemn ourselves and say, “That which I do is wrong; I should not act thus.” Even when we can’t deliver ourselves from some sin, we should not welcome it. This is the first step a man must take to bow before the merciful God. And then it is important to pray, to beseech God, to repent, to turn to the holy God-pleasers, above all St. Nicholas, that they might help us defeat our weaknesses and infirmities, that we would be vessels able to bear the grace of the Holy Spirit.

The main miracle in any man’s life is the man himself. Look at yourself in the mirror! How much wisdom, harmony, and beauty is found within you! In you is the gift of life; you can feel, see, hear, walk, and create. And Someone gave you all this and preserves it in you. This Someone is our God. Whoever sees it, and comprehends it with gratitude to the Most High for all the days of his life, whoever repents of his falls and stands again, the same becomes like St. Nicholas and all the saints.

Natalia Goroshkova spoke with Metropolitan Onuphry (Berezovsky)

Translated by Jesse Dominick

Source: http://orthochristian.com/103687.html

That wonderful story hapened to me at one of the exhibitions organized by our convent.

I was offering people the products made by our convent – icons, church supplies and other beautiful works. There were many people since everyone wanted to buy some gifts for the coming great feast – Pascha.

At one moment I saw two women standing not far from my counter. I understood that they wanted to ask me something but they were too confused. Finally, one of them coped with her embarrassment and decided to address me:

- I am not Orthodox, I don’t know anything about tour faith. Tell me, are there any saint doctors in your Church, who help people to be cured? – she asked.

- Of course, there are. Here is one of them – St. Luke of Crimea, a surgeon, a genius doctor and our contemporary, - I replied and handed her a bottle of oil, consecrated on St. Luke's holy relics.

At the very moment she took the bottle, her hand started to bleed. Terrified she looked at her hand, at me, again at her bleeding hand and cried out. She was laughing and crying at the same time. To be honest, her friend and I were just shocked with what was going on. We began to look for a cloth to wipe her hand, but she refused, showed her hand to me and her friend and repeated only one phrase, “Do you see that it’s bleeding? You see?”

Of course, we saw that and were totally confused. A bit later, the woman wiped her hand. There was no cut or wound on her hand that could bleed so heavily. Seeing wonder in our eyes, in which one could see a lot of questions, she explained everything:

- I am sick. My blood is too thick. To thin the blood, doctors prescribed me to take the meds that have a bad effect on my heart. I did not know whether I should take them or not, and now I’ve got the answer to my question! I really thank your saint! I won’t take any pills! My blood is thin enough and doesn’t clot as the doctors said. I will be tested once again, and may be the results will be different. Then they will prescribe me a more suitable course of treatment.

In front of my eyes, St. Luke made a sign for an unfaithful woman, who believed that an unknown Orthodox saint would help her.

According to your faith let it be to you!

By Sister Natalia (Bunde)

March 13, 2018

St. Elisabeth Convent

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